A Closer Look At The New Glenn Launch System & Its Future
Blue Origin is trying to create a next generation launch vehicle capable of competing with the ever growing space industry. For around a decade now, the company has been developing, manufacturing, and testing different components of this rocket. While Blue Origin has kept the majority of its development behind closed doors, we do know about some of its recent progress and what they are working on.
This comes in addition to more progress related to the BE-4 engine which will play a key role in the future capabilities, consistency, and refurbishment of New Glenn. Standing at 98 meters tall and 7 meters wide, this two stage partially reusable rocket is massive. A very ambitious jump for Blue Origin which so far has only launched New Shepard.
Combine this with the goal to land and reuse New Glenn’s booster on a drone ship out at sea, and it highlights the immense amount of work necessary for this program. All of which Blue Origin is trying to complete in a timely manner and begin routine missions to Earth orbit and beyond. Here I will go more in-depth into recent New Glenn developments, the launch vehicle’s design, what to expect in the future, and more.
New Glenn Progress
One of the most important components of New Glenn is its 7 BE-4 engines on the first stage. Not only do these provide the thrust necessary to loft this heavy lift rocket but they’re also built with reusability in mind. The goal being that after the booster lands at sea and is transported back to land, within a timely manner they can be refurbished for the next mission without having to create a new engine. In terms of progress, while BE-4 has been through quite a rigorous testing campaign in the past few years, these engines are only months away from their most important test yet.
Just four days ago on the 10th Blue Origin tweeted saying, “Congratulations to our partner @ULALaunch on achieving this milestone.” The milestone refers to United Launch Alliance officially shipping the Vulcan Centaur from the company’s factory in Decatur to their launch site at the Cape. Vulcan uses two BE-4 engines on its first stage for the majority of its thrust. Its maiden flight and the first ever test flight of these engines is scheduled to happen in only months.
Once at the Cape, Vulcan will undergo a final series of tests to verify its readiness for flight consisting of multiple tanking tests and a wet dress rehearsal, culminating in flight readiness firing likely in February, which will be the final step prior to launch. Assuming everything goes well and this engine performs as expected, it will mark a major milestone not only for Vulcan but also for New Glenn. It will also provide significant flight data that Blue Origin can use going forward as they increase the production of the engine. On the other hand, if something were to go wrong during this maiden flight relating to the BE-4 engines, it would put a major halt on the program and production as the company figures out exactly what went wrong. Based on current progress we can expect Vulcan to lift off in March.
In addition to progress on the BE-4 engine, more information has come out relating to Blue Origin’s Blue Ring project. According to various sources, Blue Ring is a project being worked on at Blue Origin apart of the company’s Advanced Development Programs. In other words, the goal is to upgrade and slightly modify the vehicle. One of these projects that we know about is project Jarvis. In this case, information became public in July 2021 that Blue Origin had begun a “project to develop a fully reusable upper stage for New Glenn,” under the name “Project Jarvis”. However more recently, it looks as if they are working toward future rideshare opportunities.
In a quote, they said, “Enabling this future requires frequent and affordable access to a variety of orbits, as well as ability to access infrastructure and services in those orbits. There is a critical need for rideshare and hosting solutions for small satellites for commercial and government purposes.” Based on the information provided, Blue Origin is in the process of developing a space tug as part of its ESPA ring, with the goal of allowing ride-along satellites to reach different orbits than the rocket’s primary payload. More work toward a more capable and competitive launch vehicle.
New Glenn Design
Now that we know more about various developments related to New Glenn and what Blue Origin is working on, we can take a closer look at a possible future launch date and the rocket itself. Currently, Blue Origin as a company is targeting 2024 for the first launch, however, a more realistic estimate would be later in 2025 as New Glenn still has a lot of work and testing necessary prior. Unfortunately, Blue Origin for the most part keeps this rocket’s development to itself, which makes predicting a launch date harder. Either way, many more developments need to be made and announced in the future prior to this maiden flight.
Focusing on the rocket itself, a lot of changes have already been made to its flight profile, design, and more. Named after astronaut John Glenn, New Glenn is a single configuration heavy-lift launch vehicle with the goal of carrying people and payloads routinely to Earth orbit and beyond. One of the first changes has to do with the first stage. New Glenn’s fully reusable first stage is designed for a minimum of 25 flights. At first, the plan was to land on a large converted cargo ship, however, that is no longer the case. In August of last year, Blue Origin abandoned its plans to use the ship as a landing platform, and the ship was towed to the Port of Brownsville for scrapping. Not long after it was revealed that Blue Origin is using the same contractor as SpaceX did to modify a large drone ship for landing its New Glenn rocket’s first stage.
Comparing the size of SpaceX’s drone ships and the size of Falcon 9’s booster, we can try and get a better idea of what these future Blue Origin landing platforms will look like. Falcon 9’s booster is 3.7 meters wide and around 40 meters tall. The drone ships it lands on such as Just Read The Instructions for example is 170ft by 300ft or 52 meters by 91 meters. However, it’s important to point out that Falcon 9’s landing legs are very wide and feature a leg span of around 18 meters. This wide base helps stabilize the rocket during and after landing but also requires a bigger target in the process.
Looking at New Glenn, this booster is around 60 meters tall and almost double the diameter of the Falcon 9 with a 7 meter width. As for its legs, the aft module houses six hydraulically actuated legs that support and secure the first stage during landing. Compared to Falcon 9’s booster these legs are a lot closer to the stage and don’t go out nearly as far. With all things considered both boosters have a very similar footprint despite the size difference. As for Blue Origin’s future drone ships, it’s hard to say the dimensions and exactly what they will look like but we can expect a slightly bigger version than what SpaceX operates today.
A necessary component of landing a booster like this has to do with the BE-4 engine and its capabilities. As far as the propellant, Blue Origin chose LNG because it is highly efficient, low cost and widely available. Unlike kerosene, LNG can be used to self-pressurize its tank. Known as autogenous repressurization, this eliminates the need for costly and complex systems that draw on Earth’s helium reserves. LNG also possesses clean combustion characteristics even at low throttle, simplifying engine reuse compared to kerosene fuels. The company points out that BE-4 was designed from the beginning to be a medium-performing version of a high-performance architecture. It’s a conscious design choice made to lower development risk while meeting performance, schedule and reusability requirements.
Looking at a mission, after second stage separation, the first stage booster reorients itself to reenter the atmosphere aft end first. Through a combination of aerodynamics and propulsive maneuvers, the stage performs a precision landing on the ocean-going platform in the Atlantic Ocean, After recovery at sea, the booster returns to the launch site via Port Canaveral for inspection and reuse.
On the booster, all the engines combined will produce around (3,850,000 lbf) total thrust at sea level. The restartable BE-4 engines are hoping to provide precision thrust vector control and continuous deep throttle capability to support propulsive deceleration and landing maneuvers, while featuring long design life. The 8.5 m (28 ft) diameter engine skirt protects the engines from atmospheric reentry conditions and contains six stowed landing gear. The mid module of the booster houses the fuel (LNG) and oxidizer (LOX) tanks. The tanks are made of ortho grid aluminum and are designed to withstand the high g-loads realized during reentry. This section of the booster also provides ground umbilical connections for New Glenn and interstage housing of the two second stage vacuum-optimized BE-3U engines. All of which will combine into a rocket with ambitious goals going forward.
Conclusion
New Glenn has been under development for over a decade now. During that time Blue Origin has been working on the design and different necessary components of the launch vehicle. In only a few months we can expect to watch the first launch of Vulcan using two BE-4 engines. We will have to wait and see how it progresses and the impact it has on the space industry.